The Truth to Glory
by Dragon Empress
Summary: Ficlet' He never meant to fall in love. He meant to be cool, polite and impersonal. But time and change have their ways, and we can never really see what's best for us when we're in the moment...


**Well, it's been a while since I wrote anything (school, school, school), but this here is my attempt at getting back into the game...**

**Kaoru/Kenshin, just because they're my favorite. **

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Everything is changing all the time. This is the elementary truth, of the universe and everything that comes after. Time moves in circles and streams, figures of eight and other confusing patterns.

Sometimes, Kaoru feels like she's the only person left behind in the whole, wide world. Especially at night, when she's alone in her room, or whenever it gets dark early and the rain just falls down and down and down. She dreams of standing in line, and when the end is in sight it's just the beginning all over again.

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There is always a day when we see our heroes for what they really are. And when it comes, we can watch our love grow or be destroyed entirely, but nothing can turn back the clock, or transform Kamiya Kaoru back into the wide-eyed, naïve little girl who loved him first.

She was seventeen then, might as well be seven hundred now.

Sometimes, they sit together on the porch, feeling like the only two people left behind in the whole, wide world. They're outside the time stream, losing hours in each other whilst the sky grows dark and the rain just falls down and down and down.

"_We have to save all the love we have, you know, because it won't be around forever…" _

"…_hm?" _

"_And…if you don't feel the same, then I don't want to love you forever. I don't want to love you at all." _

But she does. And he's more grateful than she'll ever, ever know.

Though, it doesn't hurt to scratch the surface…

When he tells her the truth it cuts deep, and they both bleed. Love isn't innocent like it used to be; love bites him with wolves' teeth, drawing blood straight from the heart. And yet, it's all he can ever do, for now and everything that comes after. He tells her the truth because it's what she deserves, not because it will give him any sense of inner peace.

Fact is, he gets that just from being near her already. It frightens him sometimes how she can make the previous twenty-eight years of his life seem like they never even existed…or that he lived them out somewhere in peace, born to a good family living their humble, good life.

When he is with her, there is no need for glory.

Things are just the way they should be, the way they are. It's not like when he was fifteen and half in love with the idea of being the glorious hero of the revolution. When the ideal was beautiful right up until he killed for the first time…right up until people he knew kept turning up dead and dying after undignified brawls with the enemy in darkened city streets…

That was glory. The real thing: to die for your cause.

He found himself disappointed time and again, because he was young, and the world was old and cruel.

Kamiya Kaoru understands this, and maybe that's part of why he needs her so much. She used to seem so young. But now, there's a darkness lurking in the brightness of her eyes and she's not the wide-eyed, naïve little girl who loved him first, anymore than he's the wide-eyed, naïve young man who searched for peace and glory in war and nearly destroyed himself in the process.

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This is the truth, and they can like it or not, but ultimately that won't change a thing.

Everything is changing all the time, and your life moves in circles and streams, figures of eight and other confusing patterns. Sometimes, if you're lucky, you get to travel along parallel to somebody else for a while and make those changes together.

And even then, sometimes still Himura Kaoru wakes up in the middle of the night with a start, the end of the line still nowhere in sight. The man next to her stirs and doesn't wake, and his presence makes her feel a little better.

But some of those dreams still feel so real. So real that sometimes afterwards, she just sits there for a while and stares up at the bright, brilliant moon; seeing clearly now what was once hidden behind the clouds.

And when the end is in sight, it's just the daytime beginning all over again.

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**Well, there we have it. Reviews are greatly appreciated, if you don't mind taking the time to push that little purple button down there...see it? **

**Good stuff. **


End file.
